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Philip Michael Lester
Philip Michael "Phil" Lester (born 30 January 1987) is an English YouTube vlogger and radio personality from Rawtenstall, Lancashire. He is known for presenting a Sunday night entertainment show for BBC Radio 1 with Dan Howell, from January 2013 until August 2014, and since September 2014 has been one of the presenters on the station's Internet Takeover slot. He is also known for being a literal ray of sunshine or the purest being on earth. Everybody loves him. Biography Lester currently lives with his best friend and fellow video blogger Dan Howell in London. He completed a degree in English Language and Linguistics and then a post graduate in the Department of Theatre, Film and television, going on to obtain a Master of Arts in Video Postproduction with Specialisation in Visual Effects at the University of York. In 2011, Lester won a Guinness World Record for fastest coin stacking, placing 25 coins on top of each other in 31.617 seconds. Career Youtube At age 19, Lester posted his first YouTube video blog titled "Phil's Video Blog - 27th March 2006". Since then he has posted over 200 videos on his channel and as of November 2017 has over 4 million subscribers with over 512 million video views, reaching 1 million YouTube subscribers on 6 July 2013, and 2 million on 29 August 2014. He is part of the Fantastic Foursome, a group of British YouTubers consisting of himself, Chris Kendall (crabstickz), Dan Howell (danisnotonfire) and PJ Liguori (KickthePj). Lester collaborated with YouTubers CharlieSkies and SarahGrace in early 2009 on a channel called pabloislove, but the collaboration ended after only a short time and now appears on YouTube under the name 'It Was Fun While it Lasted'. As of August 2014 it had obtained 2,700 subscribers and over 217,000 video views, with 17 videos posted on the channel. Lester has also appeared alongside Howell in Benjamin Cook's twelve part web series Becoming YouTube, being interviewed on the various topics Cook covered. The Super Amazing Project Lester and Howell created a collaborative YouTube channel through network My Damn Channel, entitled The Super Amazing Project, in which the duo discussed and investigated paranormal events. Segments included "Viewers Spooky Happenings" where the audience of the show would send in "scary" items for the video bloggers to react to. As of August 2014, the channel has obtained over 580,000 subscribers and over 21 million video views. In December 2012, the YouTube show finished its third season of 12 episodes. It was announced that as of October 2014 Lester and Howell would not carry on working on The Super Amazing Project to concentrate on their Radio 1 show. ''The Dan & Phil Show'' The BBC announced that starting in January 2013, Lester and Howell would present the Sunday night entertainment and request show for national UK radio station BBC Radio 1. Both had occasionally worked with Radio 1 before, making videos for the station's YouTube channel and presenting two Christmas broadcasts. The show was designed to be an interactive, audio-visual broadcast involving music videos made by viewers, physical challenges performed on air by Howell and Lester, and song requests from listeners. The show was streamed in video, live on the BBC Radio 1 website. In August 2014, it was announced that the last Dan and Phil show would be broadcast on 24 August, with the duo moving to a different show on Monday nights, featuring other popular video bloggers. Other Media Lester has appeared on television programmes including being a contestant on The Weakest Link. In addition, he played the role of Tim in the film Faintheart. Lester was interviewed with other internet entertainers on Channel 4 News in October 2012 about the increased popularity of YouTube and video blogging as a profession. Awards and Nominations In 2013, Howell and Lester were voted winners of the Sony Golden Headphones Award, presented by the Sony Radio Academy Awards, for Dan and Phil on BBC Radio 1. In 2014, Lester was nominated for a Teen Choice Award along with Dan Howell in the category Choice Web Collaboration for their video "The Photo Booth Challenge".